That would probably work... however, in short order, the $500 will be subjected to means testing and be doubled or quadrupled for those left receiving it.

I don't know, hasn't happened to the Alaska PFD. Making it means tested would mean taking it away from people, and even middle class would be getting upset at that stuff.

By the way Ben, I heard about this myself, it's not just a VAT on Amazon, but a national VAT tax. Amazon was just an example of companies "getting away" with not paying tax.

Which means that we'd be setting up a massive new department to manage sales tax for the whole country, for a relatively regressive tax.

Really, other countries like sales taxes because they have a relatively high amount of taxes anyways, and a higher percentage of visitors that wouldn't be paying income tax. The fewer forms of taxes you have, the more efficient, generally speaking. Trying to run the country off of tolls, which tend to cost proportionally more of their income to administer than things like sales or income tax(the most efficient forms), would be dumb.

Wow, just reading about this guy. He wants to tax tech companies at 40% to limit automation in industry. He fears a takeover by robots, so to speak. He and Warren should get together. "Break it up or tax it down" would be a great campaign slogan.

I don't know if that's the case anymore, though it may be dependent of your state of residence. These days, the majority of my Amazon purchases do have sales tax added to them. In many states YOU are supposed to keep track of your Internet purchases and report them to pay sales tax. Most people don't do that though, which is why many states are pushing the reporting burden to vendors.

New Jerseyĺs largest city plans to test whether universal basic income is feasible, making it the latest government to flirt with a program that would guarantee income for residents whether or not they have a job.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka announced his decision last week to create a task force and pilot program to study whether the program is possible.

ôWe believe in Universal Basic Income, especially in a time where studies have shown that families that have a crisis of just $400 a month may experience a setback that may be difficult, even impossible to recover from,ö Baraka reportedly said, adding that one-third of the city still lives in poverty.

According to Fox 5 New York, Baraka did not release any further details of the plan, like how it could be funded or when a final decision would be made.

At the Townhall link, they mentioned the Finland example, but the excerpt left out one (I think) important finding: The people on UBI were reported as becoming happier with their lives than the control group that had to keep looking for a job.

On the one hand, you might say, "Well that's a good thing!" On the other, you might consider them as Eloi. They got handed money and were told they can do whatever they want, and that they don't have to look for a job or meet any other criteria. So sure, If somebody covers all my monthly expenses and I still get my teevee, phone, Interwebz, etc., I'll be happy being a hefalump on the couch.

If everyone does that though, then who do I call to pump my septic tank? Because "UBI to follow your passion" sounds good, and someone who goes to college to become say, a geologist, might do that because that is their passion and because they would enjoy the work. People who pump *expletive deleted*it don't do that because they love it, they do it because they get paid for it. If they're told, "You can get paid to pump *expletive deleted*it or be paid to surf porn", what are those guys* going to choose?

*Because despite the "everyone deserves a college education" crowd, most of these guys aren't going to go to college to become a geologist instead of a *expletive deleted*it pumper.

EDIT: The Townhall article did have a link to a BBC article where they talk more about the "happy" factor.

$1,000 to bribe the congress critters to pass the bill, $1,000 in misc. pork, $1,000 left for the basic living wage (pre-tax, of course).

I think you left administration out of that. That would be at least 80% of the cost so you would need $5000 to send $1000 to an actual person. And don't forget about the not-actual people who would sign up as part of the multitude of fraud schemes to get more free money.

Amazon started collecting sales taxes for my state about a year ago. I think it is fair, given the low tax burden my state inflicts.

I think you will see sales tax collected by every on-line retailer soon, if not already. It came out of a USSC decision in 2018. South Dakota wanted their sales tax and went after it through the courts.